The aid from AirAsia, via its "To Philippines with love" campaign, amounted to some $2.17 million (P94.741 million), Malaysia's The Star Online reported Sunday.
“We started this campaign as an expression of Asean unity for survivors who lost so much and we are incredibly touched to find that the campaign received donations from people in 75 countries all over the world,” said AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes.
In the fund-raising done via AirAsia Foundation, the AirAsia Group matched contributions from the public and accepted contributions from the airline’s partner companies.
The Philippine Red Cross will be the main recipient of the aid, and will build 345 homes in Panay with public contributions of P46 million.
Matching and partner funds managed by AirAsia Foundation will give P37.4 million to Habitat for Humanity Philippines to build 187 weather- and quake-tolerant permanent houses in Tacloban.
Another P8 million will be given to Hapinoy’s Project Bagong Araw for sari-sari store networks, with some 133 women from Palo in Leyte expected to benefit.
The fourth beneficiary is Rags2Riches Inc, a social enterprise that trains underprivileged individuals in craft skills and helps them earn fair wages.
Figures from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council as of April 3 showed Yolanda left 6,293 people dead, 28,669 injured and 1,061 still missing.
The NDRRMC said Yolanda affected 3,424,593 families or 16,078,181 people in 12,139 barangays in 44 provinces, 591 towns and 57 cities.
It added Yolanda caused P39,821,497,852.17 in damages, including P19,559,379,136.11 in infrastructure and P20,262,118,716.06 in agriculture.
Humanitarian flights
AirAsia was one of the first commercial carriers to conduct humanitarian flights for Yolanda victims, carrying some 5,000 relief workers and survivors and 400 tons of aid items to Tacloban, Cebu and Kalibo.
It also made available 250,000 free seats in its Philippine network for relatives to search for loved ones in the affected areas. — Joel Locsin /LBG, GMA News
